I've been using WSO for 5+ years and I think the anti-diversity rhetoric has gotten so much worse
First of all, I don't support diversity recruiting. I think there are plenty of things that are completely unfair about it. I am non-diverse myself. I think there are some forms of diversity recruiting initiatives out there that shouldn't exist.
But god damn, every other post I see is someone whining about diversity. And even on posts that are not about diversity, some prospect finds a way to bring diversity up and blame it for all their problems in a tangentially related manner. It wasn't like this 5 years ago. It really wasn't. So what changed?
Some of the posts are just hilariously bad. A kid talking about how a BofA MD telling him not to apply because they're only taking diverse candidates? I promise there's white analysts at BofA dude. Many of you want to become investors. Diversity recruiting sucks, but it isn't the cause of all your problems. If you're too blind to see that, you honestly don't have the judgement you need to work in the investment industry.
Agree with the argument you're making. Too many people on this site complain all day long about diversity. It's gotten a little out of hand from my perspective.
I agree, the content of diversity superdays I have heard about are complete jokes. It’s not fair but as a candidate you can’t control it and just got to move on.
Personally I'm not only noticing this on WSO. I'm noticing an increasing negative rhetoric on "diversity" in relation to society in general.
Womp womp
In all seriousness, to fill in the gap for the boomers - the DEI initiatives and overall diversity obsession on campuses (in recent years) have gotten out of hand. This is and always will be a touchy subject. If you force this on people with increasing pressure over time, you cannot expect people not to retaliate.
Many of us are tired of talking about George Floyd. Many of us are tired of sharing our pronouns. Many of us are tired of discussing the "oppressive" patriarchy. Etc. Etc. Etc. This gets annoying over time.
Look at any college campus right now regarding the Israel-Palestine conflict. College campuses are a hotbed for extreme leftist ideologies. Many normal people get tired of eating shit sandwiches every day and we lash out.
Aww poor little, your life is so difficult because of all this George Floyd controversy. Gee, you almost feel as bad as your own neck is being crushed with DEI, don't you?
No, just shut up and count your blessings, entitled, ingrate shit. Your life has been so much easier, in reality.
if you’re talking about George Floyd or Palestine-Israel conflict in your daily life you need to seek help or log off. This is a popular topic online and in college campuses for obvious reasons but there’s no reason why it should be affecting anybody this badly in daily life… nobody is ever talking about these things irl
Okay. So, how exactly do we make a play on this secular trend, and is it already priced in?
Play along with it. If you don't fall into an existing DEI category, claim that you're bisexual. This way they can't get mad if you're dating an opposite sex partner, and they also can't ask in an interview "hey we need you to make out with this dude real quick to prove it"
I mean, it's one make out with a dude, if you can't do that in an interview, you just don't have what it takes to succeed in this industry.
If he was able to bypass this so called barrier with 1 referral it’s not a real barrier
Hiring should be merit based, not based on DISCRIMINATORY factors candidates cannot change (ie. Skin color or sex) ok maybe I can change the latter
100%, by definition (and purpose) DEI recruiting is racist and sexist. MDs need to sack up and end it.
I think this is overblown. I don't think people recruiting realize how interchangeable they are coming straight out school as an incoming intern/analyst. If you can demonstrate that you're genuinely interested, if you can pass the model test, then slight GPA differences or the fact that you're not in the student investment club doesn't matter. What matters becomes more: are you easy to get along with, are you interesting. You're not providing never-before-seen value on day one. And if you're insufferable, I won't want to work with you. Candidly if some of the complaining on this board reflects how the posters act in person, then I get why they were dinged.
Now, I'll always speak out against truly low quality candidates that are pushed forward for diversity reasons. Things like not being able to do a model test, or not being able to string together sentences about what you're interviewing for. But after working on recruiting 3 years on the banking side and 3 years on the PE side, I can probably count on one hand these cases. I think the discussions around the topic are more exaggerated than the actual instances of it happening, which makes it all the more draining.
Absolutely.
I think your second paragraph includes the point that's being missed by the people on the forum - that being that cases where diversity candidates can't also do what non-diversity candidates can are ridiculously rare.
It's gotten more prevalent because the diversity hiring has gotten more absurd.
Started in BB IB 5+ years ago and it's never been as bad. I've personally been told it doesn't matter if an intern was useless because that intern was a woman. I've been called by recruiters / PE funds for reference checks and recommendations and told that they aren't going to be interviewing anyone that isn't a diversity hire.
It's a joke. This is someone's career. When you get skipped over despite being better than someone else just so some HR manager can meet a gender metric then I think you've got a right to complain about it.
I'm also sick of analysts that are crap at their jobs and don't want to work hard who only got the job because they meet some DEI metric.
Perhaps most importantly, these bullshit initiatives punish the female and non-white candidates who actually deserve to be there. Because everyone assumes it's a token hire who's going to suck.
Accurate. Even at our little portco's (companies with less than 1,000 employees) the HR folks are telling me diversity hiring, diversity training, etc etc are critical to our success. These beliefs have become institutionalized and professionalized. Even people at small companies will go to some conference where they're told that DEI is the future and they better get on board.
When things get pushed that hard, the backlash can also be sudden and swift. And that's what I think we're seeing now.
Why do you have a right to complain about it? Why are you entitled to complain?
Do we really collectively believe that investment banks are voluntarily doing something that loses them money?
DEI is trash. 20% of my groups analysts are worse than our worst mba associate- and you know none of them are white or asian men. Forces the other 80% of competent analysts to work longer hours on more projects
Simply put, DEI recruiting is discrimination based on race and sex, end of story. I am anti-discrimination. Are you?
Because DEI is blatant race-based discrimination being enforced by the same people that always cry about how bad racism is and has only become more prominently shoved down people's throats as time has gone on. If you're too blind to see that, you honestly don't have the judgement you need to work in the investment industry.
Even if you think it’s wrong think about this… you are about to take time out of your day to complain on Wall Street oasis that some kid “stole your spot”. If you do this you are literally the people from the South Park episode. Is diversity hiring really the world issue you want to wake up and fight today lol….
Honestly man, we went from a deal boom and the COVID recruiting cycle where every moron with a half pulse had an in, to now, where its slim pickings and people are being booted off their desks.
Given the overhiring and pretty steep decline in the quality of candidates during COVID, not surprised "diversity" is the next scapegoat. You've seen the level of maturity on this site, to nobody's surprise, self awareness and acceptance of one's own failure is secondary to finding a scapegoat.
It doesn’t get better with age, I assure you (on finding scapegoats vs self awareness)…
Every day people cry about diversity here and yet I only ever interact with white guys at my job and when speaking to other people in the industry.
I’ve been using WSO for 10+ years, if not 15+ years, and WSO’s off topic forum mirrors political and cultural shifts in business society at large.
WSO has always been right-leaning, which makes a lot of sense as Wall Street is too, but when I started posting here, that manifested itself in more of a George W. Bush/Mitt Romney type of way. The topics posted were more fiscal/financial in nature and more small-C conservative.
As the American right wing has shifted from that mindset to more of an aggrieved, aggressive, MAGA approach, so have the posters and posts here. Instead of complaints about marginal tax rates, you get complaints about minorities, talk of conspiracy theories, and other culture war stuff. It all comes down to the media posters consume, what posters hear others say, etc.
Really interesting take, been here a long time and you're spot on.
This is one of my biggest problems with MAGA. Despite what they claim, they are playing victim as well.
Vote Republican - then you are a victim of immigrants, China, West and East Coast elites
Vote Democrat - then you are a victim of systematic racism, sexism, capitalsim, etc.
While I like Republican policies, I honestly think the mentality of both parties is the same and based on victimhood and I don't identify with either perspective. The vast majority of my sucesses and failures have been the result of my decisions and I'm ok with that.
Unfortunately victim/identity politics is the winning formula, and in a democracy, whatever gets more votes is rewarded and incentivized
Old timer here too, and this nails it. Main reason I don't post anymore and rarely visit.
No offense but kind of funny to hear a person from the Left saying that they can't stand the site anymore given the Right now acts like the Left has acted for decades.
I agree, but think it's kind of funny from the Left perspective.
You're not missed Alt-left hyper lib
Total agree that this spot on. One thing that I think is important to note on is on the “mindset.”
Opinions on race or ethnicities have existed since we were all a bunch of cavemen warring with the neighboring tribe. However, I think that in the last 10-20 years, it has very much been the convention that media coverage on anything race or ethnicity-based was incredibly low, relative to now.
I think your last sentence sums it up perfectly, the advent of the “MAGA” view re-introduced race-centric speech into the media orthodoxy, quite possibly making it THE defining political issue in America today.
Would really disagree with this completely. The MAGA view is very reactionary. The race stuff was pushed very very hard by the Left. And then naturally, the MAGA crowd started pushing back aggressively, but let's not kid ourselves on who started the topic so aggressively.
Old timer here.....I think that things have improved on WSO since the censorship increased. While this is a constant topic, I'd guess that it's down 30% from a year ago or so.
Also, note that per NY.Monkey's comment above, a lot of this is backlash to DEI being shoved down people's throats. If you try to stifle people's legitimate concerns about these programs even more so, you'll just get even more backlash.
Side comment. A lot of users on here are too young to know this but as someone growing up in the 90s and early 2000s, these discussions happened a lot less often. Affirmative action existed. Some people complained a little bit. DEI was present but not shoved down people's throats and we all somehow lived in harmony with much less tension. All this BS is manufactured chaos from the past 10 years. Don't believe me? See the historical gallup poll on race relations below:
https://news.gallup.com/poll/1687/race-relations.aspx
Applies to things beyond race too, IMO. Politicians, media personalities, and especially randomly ass people online try to be as extreme and divisive as humanly possible just to get noticed. Thoughtful, nuanced perspectives don’t get rage clicks.
My extended family has atheists, Catholics, protestants, and Jews in it, as well as Asians, white people, and Black people. My coworkers have been far right MAGA conspiracy heads, traditional conservatives, centrists, and liberals. My friends and neighbors have been white, Black, Asian, etc. With very few exceptions, we all understand each others’ differences and yet all still manage to coexist.
Real life simply isn’t anywhere near as confrontational, angry, or antagonistic as the internet makes it seem.
WSO is also less funny in general and I miss some of the old posters like Brofessor and Goldie.
The Mod team has really been pushing anything that is Banking/PE tangential into the Off-topics forum, which it was kind of fun to stumble across something funny in those forums
It’s gone too far and will continue to unless normal people continue to fight back.
One of my PortCo’s is going through a large integration and I kid you not our HR individual said “we need to be more cognizant of whether individuals are in a protected class before laying them off to avoid lawsuits”.
It’s gone as far to FIRING non-diverse individuals over diverse individuals……
Not sure why you’re getting ms, what an outrageous statement.
Probably lies in this phrasing lmao
There’s something funny about a “non-target zaddy” complaining about diversity hires when they themselves are one.
LMFAO try again, I’m an ORM kiddo
——-
The past couple years have been the worst entry level hiring market in over a decade. The worse the market gets, the more people wil rationalize their failures any way they can. For some, this is their first taste of adversity or things not going their way/not being enough. The diversity argument is just a low hanging fruit. Much easier to say that then either a) I am not cut out for it and/or b) I (unluckily) graduated into a hiking cycle that killed deal activity and my potential seat.
Generally agree with you, however it’s ignorant to say that this tough hiring market combined with the increased push for diversity in the last 5 years is not driving this increased scrutiny on DEI.
Simple math:
number of seats went down by 25% due to the market, DEI doubled or tripled in share of seats = unhappy individuals with true justification for feeling spurned.
Dude what? Thats exactly what I just said. However, most of these people wouldnt have made it with or without diversity, so they blame their shortcomings on diversity programs.
Actual math:
Tens of thousands of kids apply each year, only a few hundred land a seat. The bulk majority of applicants wouldnt have made it either way.
I mean, most people who complain about diversity on here are just upset because they can't hack it and it's easier to blame minorities or women on a rather right-leaning forum than it is to acknowledge their own inadequacy. As I always say, anyone who is complaining about diversity hiring and NOT about the fact that there are still lots of rich white guys getting even more disproportionately hired because their dad knows someone at the bank/firm/whatever doesn't have an argument worth listening to.
That being said, WSO has gotten way way way better about this over the last few years. The Off Topic Forum was basically a cesspool for neo-Nazis and misogynist trolls for a good long while until the moderation started kicking in.
So yeah, it's a shame that there are so many teenagers who lack self-awareness and want to blame the tiny number of diversity hires (whose only failing is being a diversity hire, no one ever seems to be able to really show why these people are worse at their jobs than anyone else) instead of the huge numbers of privileged white frat bros. But that's life - bigots exist. If they didn't, we wouldn't need diversity hiring in the first place, and it's kind of amusing in a sad way that every person who makes an "anti-diversity hiring" post on WSO is so unaware of the fact that they're the problem
Disagree, although you are likely right that most of the the outrage is mostly by the people who believe they have been conned by DEI practices in some way, people in the industry don't seem to disagree (also apparent in this thread)
I have personally seen people who have laughed and said that they don't even know what a DCF is... they were hired to top BB's that people work hard for.
Yeah, I knew some of those folks too when I was on Wall Street. But here's the thing, they weren't just people who might be considered diversity hires. In fact, it was more likely to be the rich white kid who owed his job to his dad's connections. Which is my entire point about people who are complaining about diversity hires, and which I've repeated very often - if diversity hiring was replacing a truly meritocratic system, there might be some justice to calling for it to be scrapped. But anyone who has spent any time in finance knows that the default isn't and never was "the best qualified gets the job," it was always "the best connected gets the job." So complaining that a kid from a HBCU got a job "because" of diversity hiring is really just a veiled way of saying "black people shouldn't be in finance," because the person complaining was never getting that spot; it was going to a rich white guy. And if it is replacing some worthy candidate, then the outrage should be directed not at the diversity hire, but at the equally unqualified rich kid getting hired. There just isn't a way around this, and every time I point it out on WSO the person who made the initial argument mysteriously disappears or stops responding.
It's also worth pointing out that knowing how to create a DCF model, or even what it is, is hardly meaningful bar to clear. Like, if that's what your hanging your hat on, then we need to back up and assert some first principles here, because knowing what that is doesn't actually make you any better at your job than someone who doesn't. It sort of sucks to hear, but just because you were in the finance club and checked all the boxes that are supposed to help you get a job in finance, doesn't actually mean you're any better than the person who didn't and in some cases may have the opposite impact. I remember modeling bootcamp as an analyst - the guys who could finish theirs 5 seconds faster than the next guy would crow about it for days, but half of them also couldn't type up a grammatically correct email. The latter is way more valuable than the former, because most banks can teach you the math and Excel stuff, but not basic communication skills
Some people obviously overreact to diversity programs. But can you really blame them? It’s beyond infuriating to see people receive special treatment on the basis of identity. This is universally recognized, yet simultaneously universally ignored, in the context of high stakes realms like employment and college admissions. Enough is enough.
And yet none of them seem too concerned about the fact that the actual recipients of a "leg up" in the hiring process are usually rich white men. It's fine to be infuriated by someone receiving an advantage that you don't get, but it really feels like you lose a lot of the high ground when your argument is "diversity hires are taking a spot I could have had and that's not fair" and completely ignore the "there is a massively disproportionate number of rich white kids who are also unqualified and taking spots I could have had."
If you complain about one and not the other (and it's extremely rare on WSO to hear anyone complain about kids hired because their dad plays golf with the hiring manager), then it's fair game to ask why - because your post certainly sounds like it's not the fact that other people are getting unfair advantages, but thatspecific types of people are getting unfair advantages... and when you decide that the target should be women and minorities, who have been historically blackballed from many finance roles, and not white men from wealthy households, then you really do reveal a lot about yourself.
Because when you're white and you're used to getting by with advantages in your favor implicitly and explicitly, any attempt at moving towards a truly equal society would seem to you like discrimination. Can't compete in the real world? well, it's obviously not your fault - why would it be? And I know that it's definitely not the fault of the 100s of nepo and legacy White hires because clearly they deserve to be there. It has to be the fault of the one black girl taking your rightful spot on a team filled with 80%-95% White and Asian men. It's a heightened level of entitlement and yet another way to scape-goat those doing better than yourself. It'll only get worse from here. As the job market gets worse, so will the desperation of the racists who look to pass the blame onto others.
So your answer to discrimination is more discrimination? I find it laughable you also lump in Asians because they are definitionally a minority and they get the short end of the stick (i.e., no diversity hires for you!).
It's telling that all the adults are agreeing with OP and all the kids and privatetechquity (most outspoken right winger on this forum, and I'm saying this a conservative too) are continuing to justify their bitching and moaning.
Umm, maybe DEI simply has gotten to far up there? I remember at least four contacts while recruiting telling me its just going to be a lot more competitive for me because I am non-diverse. The three of the four were the most helpful people, and they didn't mean to tell me I am a weak candidate. Also, two of them recommended I apply to diversity programs if I am diverse saying "whatever that means" regarding diversity. BTW, I had no whatsoever family connection, Asian non-diverse male, and both my parents never went to college. Also, don't ever assume diversities are not nepo kids/connected/wealthy kids. I've seen plenty of diversity students from Andover/Eton and girls who were wealthy. Well, if the world wants true fairness, they should better check the financial situations when hiring diversity students.
Yes, you are coming very close to a really important realization and then you veer off from it.
Maybe the entire hiring process should be totally blind! Double blind it. Pick a couple things that matter (GPA, major, etc) and then pick those regardless of school or identity or name or anything else. And then interview those people and pick a few. Because the issue isn't diversity hires, the issue is that there are WAY more people hired who get the job because their father plays golf with an MD or their mother sits on the PTA board with an SVP or any other connection. That's the real undermining of any concept of meritocracy in hiring - that the kids with connections (who, despite your point, are overwhelmingly white and male) have a truly enormous leg up.
Hiring should be based on merit but who gets to decides the definition of merit. Hiring should not be decided solely on grades or schools. The main goal of a company is to increase shareholder value. To accomplish this objective, hiring should be based partly on who can bring in clients either based on connections or sales skills. Companies should be allowed to hire whoever they want within the guidelines of labor law. The people who whine about diversity feel they are entitled to a position even though he or she may not add the most value to the organization. They mostly complain about minorities taking jobs away jobs from them but the reality is that minorities comprise a very low percentage of jobs in investments.
Sadly it has gotten worst. If you truly understood American history and the continuous oppression against minorities, you would understand why DEI is needed. Truth is the majority of the country has racial bias against minorities. I’ve seen discriminatory hiring practices across all level. Having DEI top of mind helps even the playing field. Most people on this site have never looked at it from a different perspective and from outside their WASPY bubble.
I would argue that although it's not an excuse, it's certainly a huge barrier. Let's take an EB like Guggenheim for example. They only take in 10-15 interns every year. These are positions that are opened to thousands of applicants making the acceptance rate extremely difficult. When you reserve 2-5 of these spots for diversity hires, that essentially lowers your chance of acceptance by a significant margin. By reserving these two spots for diversity only, then you also increase the acceptance rate for these spots specifically.
So boom, now you have an extra few minorities making an insane amount of money right out of college at the expense of lost opportunities of thousands. This opportunity cost is almost impossible to calculate but I do believe it's greater than the benefits of diversity.
Because diversity hiring itself has gotten more ridiculous over the years. Before you had a candidate who was 'diverse' and maybe 70-80% as good as a non-diverse candidate, modern diversity hiring is now 'if they have a pulse and are black' which take spots of people who deserve to be there
Diversity hiring these days is just di-worsity hiring
The lib agenda is to oppress those who they deem are privileged (white and Asian) while boosting those they deem are not (blacks) to win their votes. Strangely Hispanics count as diversity but you don't see as many of them
It's reverse racism at its finest. We'll see what the class makeup looks like for Class of 2028, if it's not drastically different then those colleges will have a reckoning with the courts
Is this a serious question?
If you're a straight white male between the ages of 18 and 40 (i.e.the majority of this site), you've spent your entire life being told how you are dangerous and bad and undeserving of any opportunities afforded you.
You were told endless stories of how the evil patriarchy had kept women done for millennia, and watched countless movies and tv shows portraying people who looked like you as sexual predators, and evil monsters who did everything in their power to keep women down.
And for a long time, you probably bought into it. You made an effort not to "mansplain," and you treated women and minorities as if they were innocent creatures who needed protection from evil men, and you were made to feel guilty and ashamed of yourself...
And you spent decades eating shit from man hating teachers and administrators and HR departments and told "you deserve it." And you were forbidden from speaking up and defending yourself, lest your reputation be blown up publicly and left penniless and unable to work...
and NOW?!?! You're fucking sick of it, and while you might not have wanted revenge in the past, you realize that if you DONT secure the power while you can, the establishment will put their boot right back on your neck.
Paybacks a bitch.
I’m already in IB and could care less about diversity recruiting.
With that said - how does holding spots open only for diversity candidates not affect a regular candidate that might have otherwise been able to get hired?
Of course it has. What has happened over the course of five years? Especially in the last three… Finance has been through the wringer. When economic insecurity hits, people tend to become very agitative when it comes to job security. Unfortunately, since diversity and female-exclusive hiring processes are inherently discriminatory despite probably being extremely over-exaggerated on a widespread scale, it becomes an easy scapegoat because it is a barrier certain demographic groups have to work through (even though an applicant’s resume & interview performance is what primarily dictates getting an offer not your gender/race). This is very normal behavior in this type of environment where rejection is common and it isn’t early 2021 where EBs/top BBs were hiring brain dead kids whose biggest accomplishment was remembering to get dress before walking out of the house.
Honestly I can see a use-case for diversity in finance as you are dealing with people half the time and having unique perspectives can be important.
However, it behooves me why diversity (and sexuality?!) is becoming such a huge component in tech, a field that’s supposedly meritocratic. I could not care less what shape, size, gender, or sexuality my teammate is as long as they get the work done and aren’t annoying to collaborate with.
Python is still Python whether you’re black white red orange and are attracted to zombies.
Well i for one am tired of hiring random females for a deck of cvs containing 90% males because otherwise we wouldn’t get the headcount.
This shit is toxic and builds resentment. Even at senior level. We all know who were the token hires that need “compensating for”.
The other day, we had the first trading interview process in years where the top candidate (post interview) was female and we were so happy to for once not feel like diversity was some stupidly overweighted factor.
Yeah, I'm a woman who entered before the diversity hiring era, and after:
I have to listen to some dipshit who isn't good enough to land a high paying job say that it's because of dIvErSiTy and pretty privilege.
No, if you're not good enough, then you're just not good enough.
I've seen a few diversity hires who are legitimately bad. They are still outnumbered by the number of straight men whose egregious incompetence gets covered up on a regular basis, with the blame shoved lower down the food chain.
lol what a joke. In 2024 these events are the exception rather than the rule. I’m sorry this happened to you (assuming you aren’t a fat male white knight in a basement doing this for kicks) but don’t take a few isolated events and justify reverse oppression
You’re a joke for calling yourself oppressed.
Not good enough is still just not good enough
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